Atesgah Fire Temple, Merdekan, Suvelan and Nardaran

People I met here who contributed to, and improved my trip: Julia (Russia)

 

On Monday we decided to visit the Abseron Peninsula, located just a short distance to the North East of Baku. To get to Ateshgah Fire Temple located at Suraxani we had to take two marshrutka's, which took around 30 minutes. Our student cards reduced the price from 2 Manats ($2.50) each to 0.60 Manat ($0.75) each and as there wasn't a great deal to see, i didn't bother paying an additional 2 Manats for my camera. The place had been a sacred site of Zoroastrian Fire Worshipers for centuries, as a natural gas vent is located here, but it wasn't until the 18^th Century that Indian Shiva devotees had built the Temple.

Julia's Dad had been here in Soviet times when gas still naturally burned in the centre of the Temple and also out of the four corners of the roof. Today there is no natural gas, so the government supply the place, which takes away the magic in my opinion, especially as they are too stingy to pump enough to light the corners of the roof.

 

Next on our agenda was the Ziyaretgah in the town of Suvelan, which is a beautiful new Mosque and shrine. The outside was very ornate and it was interesting to see such a sparkling new place before the tiles dulled or fell off. The shrine inside was also beautiful, with worshipers walking around a silver cage which protected a holy shrine, kissing it as they circled around it for luck.

 

Nearby was the town of Merdekan, which is the home to a couple of interesting sites.

The first that we visited was the Pir Hesan Mosque, which had a little pavilion outside where Zeyalabdin Tagiyev is buried. What do you mean you have never heard of him, he was that famous oil baron, remember? Nah, me neither! From here we walked through town to an 1187 Castle Guard Tower. There was also a Watch Tower that was undergoing restoration in the area, but this was off limits for the time been and anyway one tower was quite enough for us.

 

From Merdekan we had to catch a marshrutka back into the centre of Baku and then from here jump in another marshrutka that was heading out to Nardaran. The reason to visit the town was to see the stunning Rehime Khanim Mosque, which was constructed in the 1990's. Although none of the distances that we had travelled were that far, time was still flying by as all the small journeys were adding up. By the time we got back to Baku it was 16.30, so we decided to head home as Misha was due to leave for work at 18.00.

 

By 21.00 Misha had still not left for work and Zaur hadn't turned up either, which had left us tied to the house rather annoyingly. By 22.00 we'd had enough and told Misha we needed to go out, but he couldn't be bothered to get out of bed to lock the door behind us, which i wasn't too impressed by. Having eaten some snacks and used the net we returned home and got to bed around 01.00.